Vegan Action
Larry Rumbough
Vegan Activism in Florida
by Amy Burger
Larry Rumbough
Vegan Activism in Florida
by Amy Burger
Larry Rumbough co-founded the nonprofit organization Vegetarians of Central Florida (VegCF), which hosts an Earth Day celebration each spring and a VegFest each fall in Orlando, FL, where Rumbough is from. Over the past 20 years, Larry Rumbough estimates that close to a million people have attended the events he has coordinated.
VegCF started in 2003, when, to Rumbough's knowledge, no vegetarian or vegan organization existed in Central Florida. He initially launched VegCF as a Meetup group to socialize with other vegans and vegetarians in the area, but says "within a couple of years," the group started hosting events. While Rumbough says, "We didn't know what we were doing" at first, he's been at it long enough that groups in Tampa Bay and Jacksonville, Florida, have reached out to him for help planning their own events.
His most recent Earth Day event was VegCF's 19th and was held at Lake Eola, Orlando's biggest park. Each April, Central Florida Earth Day hosts about 200 vendors, representing "a wide array of eco-friendly businesses and groups." VegFest, also in its 19th year, is mostly food-oriented and hosts about 150 vendors each year, featuring local restaurants, artists, and animal rescue organizations. That event is held at Orlando's Festival Park and takes place in October.
It is between the end of the Earth Day event and the start of planning VegFest that Rumbough has a little extra downtime. He fills it with hobbies like mud runs, triathlons, and trivia competitions, and he likes to travel, though he's done less of it since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rumbough especially enjoys concerts, "mostly `70s and `80s rock and roll," though he says it "has to be a really good concert" to warrant a trip. He's traveled to cities including Washington, DC; New York; Boston; and Philadelphia, but says he's lucky to live in Orlando because it has "one of the best" vegan and vegetarian restaurant scenes.
VegCF's website describes Rumbough as having been "vegan for 45 years and active in animal rights causes for 35 years." The organization recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. You can learn more at vegcf.org and visit cfearthday.org and cfvegfest.org for more information on each annual event.
Amy Burger is a former VRG intern who writes for Vegan Journal as a volunteer. Amy lives in Georgia, where she works as a college librarian and part-time teacher. Her hobbies include cooking and traveling.
